Midnight Guardian
by Delinea
Summary: Buffy tries to cope with being alive again - set during After Life - season 6 spoilers


Midnight Guardian  
  
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Well I do own stuff but not any Buffy stuff.  
Rating: Parental Guidence - but mostly general  
Summery:  
Buffy tries to cope with being alive again - set during After Life - season 6 spoilers  
  
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Buffy stared at herself in the mirror. Everything was still too bright, even this dark room. The sounds of a sleeping house closing in around her like a nightmare. It was cold. Very cold.  
  
Buffy walked over to the closet and opened it. The smell of stale air assaulted her and she gagged. Taking slow deep breaths she pulled out a sweater and pulled it on. The course texture rubbed along her arm, itchy, scratchy. She took it off and dropped it on the floor. Instead she took out a soft sweatshirt and pulled it on. She could still feel the texture of it brushing her arm but it was soft this time.   
  
She could hear the movement of Willow and Tara in their bedroom, and she could hear Dawn tossing and turning in her bed. Everyone it seemed, was having as sleepless a night as she was.   
  
She wanted to go now, to leave the house, to go somewhere else right now. She wanted to go back to heaven.   
  
That seemed impossible right now. She supposed there were ways to make it happen. It suddenly occurred to her. She was thinking suicide.   
  
Life wasn't what she'd wanted. She'd been happy, and now.. Buffy shivered. She was cold.   
  
Dawn's face floated up to her from within the pain. Her voice as she begged Buffy to come down off the platform. No, she didn't want life, but she didn't want to commit suicide.   
  
She had to get out of the house. Now, before her thoughts continued their path.  
  
She wrote a small note and left it on her bed.  
  
Dawn and Willow,  
I just had to go for a walk and clear my head. I'll be back in a few hours.  
Buffy.  
  
She wandered her old stomping ground, passing places she used to know, used to frequent. She passed the old school grounds, the bronze, and finally ended up at the cemetery. She passed by familiar grave stones and past trees she could see even when she closed her eyes. She'd spent so much time here, with Giles, with Willow, Xander, Anya and Tara. She'd spent so much time here alone, deep in thought, doing what came naturally, making the world a safer place for the one's she loved.   
  
She past Spike's crypt and with a quick glance, realized that she'd probably spent more time in recent past with him here than with anyone else. As she walked on by, memories of him came to mind. Fighting against him, fighting along side him, physical and emotional and verbal battles, their violent but quick witted banter that she'd both hated and loved at so many times.   
  
She stopped suddenly and looked down. Without even thinking about it she'd made her way to her mother's gravestone. Here was where her world had really started going wrong. Up to that point her life wasn't peaches but it worked. She had friends, she had her mother and her sister. Then she'd found out Dawn wasn't her sister, she'd watched her mother's health falter, watched her die suddenly. Then Glory had taken her unstable world and turned it into a nightmare. When she'd leapt from the tower, she knew, in her heart, that everything would be okay. Death had been her gift to her friends, to Dawn, and to herself.   
  
She'd started walking again, away from her mother's grave to a patch of ground beneath a willow tree. She regarded the headstone below it's drooping branches for a few moments. She laid down on her side, resting her head on the grass, running her fingers through the newly disturbed earth where her own hands had unsettled the grave only hours before.   
  
Behind her, an unseen shadow stepped out from behind the tree.  
  
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Spike had been just about to drink himself into a stupor when he'd seen a familiar shape pass by the door of his crypt. For a moment he'd thought he'd been just chasing shadows, but he stepped into the doorway and confirmed it was indeed, Buffy. Frowning he stepped out of his crypt and followed. She seemed to be alone, and although she didn't seem as confused as she had earlier, he doubted she should be out here by herself. He glanced around to make sure the Witches, the Whelp, or Lil'bit wasn't around then followed her slow path around the cemetery.   
  
What she was doing out here now was a mystery to him. How she'd even managed to get out of the house without Willow or Dawn knowing was beyond him. He would have thought Dawn would have spent the night in the chair next to her bed. He knew he would have, if he could have. He'd settled for coming back to his crypt, furious at Willow and Xander, taking it out on the upper floor of his crypt, then settling down get drunk. *Until she came.* he thought.   
  
He stayed back in the shadows, although he was sure that even if he'd walked three inches behind her, she wouldn't have noticed him. He watched her stand in front of Joyce's grave for a moment before moving on.   
  
She began to move in a familiar direction, although Spike was sure that it was only coincidence. He was still trying to convince himself of that until she stopped right in front of a very familiar tree.   
  
He stopped, about 20 feet back, leaning against a tree in the shadows of the moon and watched her. She stood there for a moment staring at a headstone that he couldn't read from this angle. He leaned his head back against the tree and closed his eyes for a moment. It didn't matter, the image of it would be engraved on his mind until the world around his fell apart and he ceased to exist. He'd spent many early mornings, after patrols when the Scoobies were asleep in their beds, laying in the grass in front of that stone, under that tree, imagining that she was lying there next to him.   
  
When he opened his eyes again, she was no longer standing in front of the tree. Something inside him clenched, right about where his heart no longer beat. She'd lain down upon her own grave. She lay there, barely moving. She didn't see him, but he moved closer, until he could see her tears as she laid there.   
  
He watched until she stopped crying, letting her have her moment of respite. He watched until her breathing evened out and he knew that she was asleep.   
  
Spike moved to her side and crouched down before her. For a moment he got a flash of a memory that he would spend the rest of her life trying to forget. He could see her, lying there, lifeless, on top of a pile of rubble. She'd looked peaceful, asleep. The only difference was the stillness of her chest. He blinked at the tears that welled up again and looked down at her, watching the rise and fall of her chest, reminding himself that she was real, that she was alive.  
  
Her eyes were closed and her face was slack. Her cheeks were still damp from tears and her face was slightly red and a little puffy. Her lower lip looked a little swollen, from biting down on it when she was crying. She was beautiful. She looked like an angel, the closest to the real thing that he would ever see.  
  
He looked around. They were still alone. The cemetery was empty tonight. As if all the big nasties had decided to take the night off in honor of her return. He couldn't count on that though. He couldn't leave her here alone, and even if he stayed here with her, she would freeze. He noted the heavy sweatshirt she wore despite the warm night.   
  
Leaning over, he lifted up the slayer in his arms. She was so light, so fragile, that it amazed him, especially when he thought about all the times she'd given him a hard run for his money. Sometimes he forgot that she was so small and fragile. She had an air of complete control most of the time, as willow would say, "An air of larger than life-ish-ness."   
  
He could take her back to his crypt, lay her down in his bed and spend the night watching over her. It's what he wanted to do more than anything, but he knew he couldn't. Morning wasn't too far off, and he knew that the Lil'bit would wake up, expecting her sister to be asleep in her bed. He'd promised to protect Dawn till the end of the world, and he would do anything before he hurt her.   
  
He carried the sleeping Buffy past his crypt and then off towards her house. He let himself in quietly, silently thanking Buffy for her trust in him for the millionth time. He quietly made his way up the stairs, being very careful not to wake the others.   
  
Inside her room, he gently lowered her to the bed, taking off her shoes and pulling the blanket over her. He kneeled down beside the bed, looking at her. Xander had been right. When he'd seen her, it had been the happiest moment he could remember. He reached over and brushed her hair away from her face. For now, she was his to look at. Come tomorrow, everything would revert back to like it was before, and he would be back to standing outside looking in on what he could have had if he was still human.   
  
He could hear a bed creak somewhere else, as Willow or Tara turned in their sleep. He should go before he was found here. Willow had power and wouldn't take too kindly to finding him here, watching Buffy sleep.   
  
He stood taking one last long look at her.   
  
"I love you, Slayer." he whispered, turning. He didn't see the soft smile on Buffy's lips as he moved quietly to the door.   
  
Just as he paused at the door, he thought he heard, a soft murmur. "Thanks, Spike."  
  
He turned back to look at her. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was soft and even. He smiled and slipped from the house.  
  
Hours later, when Willow and Tara opened Buffy's door to check on her, they found her asleep in her bed, safe and sound. 


End file.
